Ruto orders removal of green channel as Garissa passport office re-opens

President William Ruto handing over a passport to a Garissa resident following the re-opening of the Garissa passport centre on February 6, 2025. (PCS)

By Maureen Kinyanjui
Thursday, February 6, 2025

The passport centre will also provide services for residents of Mandera, Wajir, Garissa, Tana River, Lamu, and Kitui counties.

Garissa residents can now apply for passports locally after President William Ruto reopened the immigration office, which had been shut down since 2014 due to security concerns. Garissa becomes Kenya's 10th passport application centre.

"The passport office, which had been closed over small issues, I have reopened it. There will be no need to travel to Nairobi for a passport," Ruto said on Thursday while in Garissa.

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The passport centre will also provide services for residents of Mandera, Wajir, Garissa, Tana River, Lamu, and Kitui counties.

At the same time, he directed the removal of the green channel at airports to prevent unnecessary delays and harassment of travellers heading to Mecca.

He assured Muslim pilgrims that the process would be smooth. "I have told the immigration officers to remove the green channel so that those going to Hajj are not disturbed or harassed at the airport."

The Garissa immigration office was shut down in September 2014 following a series of terror attacks in the region and across the country.

President William Ruto touring the Garissa passport centre which was re-opened on February 6, 2025. (PCS)

The closure had disrupted travel plans for at least 400 pilgrims and 300 soldiers from Kenya and Sierra Leone who were set for deployment in Somalia.

Then-Immigration Director Maj-Gen (Rtd) Gordon Kihalangwa justified the move as a necessary step to prevent security loopholes in passport issuance.

"Considering the prevailing insecurity, this practice (decentralisation) does not work in the national interest. Devolution is good, but we cannot devolve security, which remains the domain of the national government," Kihalangwa said at the time.

Efforts to reopen the office had been made before. In June 2024, then-Interior CS Kithure Kindiki, now Deputy President, had promised Garissa residents that the passport centre would resume operations in July 2024.

However, this did not happen, leaving thousands in the North Eastern region with no choice but to travel long distances for passport services.

With the latest directive, residents hope the facility will operate without further interruptions.